


the inaudibility of wonder

by saebeok



Category: Super Junior, Super Junior-M, The Giver Series - Lois Lowry
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-26
Updated: 2014-03-26
Packaged: 2018-01-17 02:27:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1370512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saebeok/pseuds/saebeok
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Assigned as a Driver, Kyuhyun leaves his Climate-Controlled city daily to pick up supplies. His days are dreamless and staid, and more importantly, they are safe. When another Driver is sent to run the routes with him, the both of them end up hurtling down a road that is at once infinitely dangerous and unspeakably hopeful. </p>
<p>Trigger warning for forced medical procedures (nothing gory) and mentions of death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the inaudibility of wonder

**Author's Note:**

  * For [halcydonia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/halcydonia/gifts).



> This is a dystopian AU based on the world of The Giver by Lois Lowry. The world in this story is one that precedes that of The Giver - it exists in the interim state between our world and a full-blown dystopia.
> 
> Many thanks to static_abyss for beta-ing! ^^

He stares out at the black oil-slick expanse of sand, hands pushed deep into the pockets of his jacket, hunched against the biting cold, shifting his weight from one foot to the other in a bid to stay awake. It is dawn, and Kyuhyun squints to make out the silhouette of the incoming truck. He wishes it would hurry up, so that he can start up his own vehicle and drive away again in warmth. The city is undergoing yet another period of Conservation and as necessary as he understands it to be, he wishes that the prohibition on idling engines didn’t apply to Resource trucks plying the Northern route.

When Kyuhyun finally drives the long route back towards the city with a new supply of minerals rattling in the back of his truck, a grey sleet begins to fall, rendering the road ahead a dirty blur. He mutters to the Speaker in the truck, asking for a weather report for the miles ahead. He receives nothing but static in response.

So he sings - softly at first, but then a little louder amid the sound of the storm against the windows. He imagines that the song smears warmth across his chest. The heating’s already turned on as high as it’s allowed to go, and he has yet to receive his new set of Rations, in which a pair of gloves should be forthcoming. He’d put in a request months ago, but knowing the Allocators’ lack of experience with the cold, they’d probably listed it as a Luxury. He finishes one song - a folk melody from the Past - and directs the same question to the Speaker once more, before starting another song when he receives silence once more.

The sleet lasts for another ten kilometres, and the cold for much longer. When the Speaker finally crackles to life again with instructions for a new delivery, Kyuhyun pretends he had missed that sound.

He drives on. Delivers his supplies for the day. Receives next week’s schedule. Goes back to his dwelling. Eats the meal allocated to him. Falls into a pitch-black sleep.

The days pass, but it’s not like anybody’s counting.

-

Another Driver has been assigned to his route. Kyuhyun finds out when he steps into the Resource Base to find a notification message in his locker. This change makes him uneasy. He’s driven alone for as long as he’s had this Assignment. He cannot imagine someone else taking up the private space of his truck.

But he needs to be on the road soon if he wants to pick up the supplies on time, so he folds the note away and puts on his jacket, emblazoned with the symbol of their city. When he gets to his truck, the new Driver is already there.

“You must be Zhou Mi.”

Zhou Mi turns away from the truck and smiles at him. “Kyuhyun? It’s nice to meet you."

Kyuhyun nods and gestures towards the passenger seat. “Let’s get going. We’re doing the Western route today.”

Despite how cheerful he seems to be, Zhou Mi surprises Kyuhyun with his quietness as they maneuver through the city streets and then down the highway that cuts through the outskirts. Kyuhyun wonders if he’d ever been in a vehicle of any kind, prior to becoming a Driver. He steers the vehicle with mindless familiarity, observing surreptitiously the way Zhou Mi leans to look out of the window, his stare tracking random buildings and signs that dot the landscape.

After a long stretch of nothing but bedraggled grass and sky they finally get to the border, which is a long and menacing expanse of barb wire and a guard post. Zhou Mi makes a small, involuntary noise. Kyuhyun remembers being a little more restrained about his own surprise when he’d first encountered this sight himself, but can understand the apprehension and curiosity that may be going through Zhou Mi’s mind now.

“We’re crossing the border. You have your exit pass with you, right?”

Zhou Mi nods. “Is that… Are we being sent Elsewhere?”

Kyuhyun’s hands still imperceptibly on the steering wheel for a moment. “We’re going outside of our community,” he amends, pointing at their destination on the map pinned to the dashboard of the truck that he hasn’t consulted in a long time.

They approach the guard post. Zhou Mi’s clutching his exit pass, regarding the fence with a small frown. Kyuhyun decides that the information about it being electrified as well is something that he should only share later. He winds down the window and feeds both their passes into the machine, watching them disappear into one end and come out from another with soft whirrs and clicks. The barriers before them open and he collects the cards, driving them through the detectors and onto the road that doesn’t have a discernible end.

The quiet plains stretch on either side of them, not too different from what was before the border. Kyuhyun steps on the accelerator and doesn’t answer the questions Zhou Mi isn’t asking.

They’re a long way away from their community when Kyuhyun calls into the Speaker for a route report. There is no response, and Zhou Mi looks frightened. He’s never heard a silent Speaker in his life before. To Zhou Mi, this is alarming because it goes against all that he’s ever known. But to Kyuhyun, this silence is a relief. In this window of time that they have, Kyuhyun feels as though a weight has been lifted from his tongue – he can speak without being overheard.

Kyuhyun winds down the windows a little to let the cool air in.

“I bet you haven’t seen mountains before,” he says.

Zhou Mi shakes his head, wide-eyed. “I’ve only heard some things…”

“From old stories,” Kyuhyun finishes his sentence for him. He gestures at the long, sinuous mountain range that lies in the distance, “Well, what do you think?”

He almost laughs at the way Zhou Mi gapes at him before turning so quickly to look that he nearly hits his head. He’d looked at those same mountains unthinkingly himself, day after day when he’d first started this Assignment, only to realise out of the blue one day that there was truth to the tales he’d heard as a child. Biting back a smile, Kyuhyun admires the scene that lies before them, noting that it is less foggy than usual around the foothills.

“Beautiful, aren’t they?”

Beautiful. Zhou Mi intones the word under his breath experimentally, and then nods, still awestruck. Kyuhyun isn’t going to deny the small resentment he’d felt at Zhou Mi when he first climbed into the private space of his truck. Now Kyuhyun thinks that there’s something to be said about the soft exclamatory sighs that Zhou Mi makes and the soaring feeling of sharing something as wondrous as this.

He drives on, the wind wrapping cool around their skin, the quiet between them settling into the corners of the truck like a heavy blanket. They arrive at their destination, where the cargo load is already waiting for them. He shows Zhou Mi how to load the boxes securely in the truck so they don’t shift too much during transport, explaining how the Western region is their city’s major source for wool and linens. They are able to pack everything on board much faster than if Kyuhyun had been alone; Zhou Mi is a quick learner and a steady worker, which Kyuhyun appreciates.

On the journey back over the long empty road, Zhou Mi watches the mountains and the dense clouds that hang over them. It’s rather hot during this time of the year, and while the interior of the car is comfortably Climate Controlled just like the rest of their city, Kyuhyun leaves the windows down anyway.

When the Speaker finally crackles with a new route report for them, Kyuhyun wonders at the spark of disappointment that rises in his chest.

-

Again and again, the days pass. They run the Western route exclusively for a full month. Zhou Mi began to alternate driving duties with Kyuhyun after the first week and stopped gaping at the mountains.

They don’t know what’s in the ever-increasing boxes they pick up and unload over and over again, but Kyuhyun’s heard some whispers. He keeps them inside of himself - it’s the way to get by in this city. He used to think their world was hurtling towards some unknown destination, the Past an increasingly improbable figment of imagination. These days he doesn’t dwell on these thoughts anymore. After all, he got shifted to this Assignment after asking too many questions.

Initially, he missed being a Book Keeper, missed being surrounded by towering shelves and the scent of aged paper. But he grew to like the arching stretch of open roads and the wind that whipped in through his window. Two years after Kyuhyun’s ignominious Reassignment to become a Driver, he returned from a route one day to discover that the city had razed all its Libraries to the ground and sent the Book Keepers to the margins as Labourers.

After hearing the news, he drove away towards the next destination on his schedule, pulled up by the roadside halfway down the Northern route, and threw up on the yellowed grass. He crouched in the chilly evening darkness for an hour and told himself that he was shaking because of the cold. Then he climbed into the truck again and stepped on the accelerator, trying to calm his shaky breathing. On the way back, Kyuhyun forced himself into impassivity when he neared the city outskirts once more. At the end of the day he went back to his dwelling and repeated the same mantra over and over again before he could fall into a restless sleep. _I’m safe. I’m safe._

Zhou Mi’s smile is a little brighter than most other people’s. Kyuhyun wonders what he’d done to get Reassigned. He doesn’t ask. He never makes the same mistake twice.

-

When they finally get scheduled to run the Northern route again, Kyuhyun can’t help but smile as he stares at the paper. It’s been half a year. He’s missed it.

“Your favourite route?” Zhou Mi nudges his shoulder teasingly. Kyuhyun’s stopped startling at how easily and casually Zhou Mi makes contact with him, recognising it’s just part of who he is.

“Let’s go. There should be a jacket in your locker - you’ll need it.”

He’s been slowly showing Zhou Mi various new things unknown to most inhabitants of the city, like the rain that washes over the Western foothills and the small, bright flowers that bloom in the bushes that dot the side of the road. Sometimes he wonders if he’s doing the right thing - it’s not explicitly _forbidden_ , but there is an illicitness to it all the same. But the way Zhou Mi regards these revelations with reverence and wonder cannot be a lie. Kyuhyun knows because he had once discovered these things for the first time too.

On the route, the temperature drops drastically sometime after the Speaker stops giving them route reports. Kyuhyun doesn’t take his eyes off the road as he pushes Zhou Mi’s jacket towards him. The other man’s frowning a little, rubbing his arms as he takes in the strange sensation.

“Put it on,” Kyuhyun prompts, “it’s only going to get colder.”

“Just when I thought there wasn’t anything new left for me to learn,” Zhou Mi grins. The sunlight catches in his soft hair and Kyuhyun stops watching him from the rearview mirror, focusing on the soothing drone of the truck travelling down the smooth road. He’s found that Zhou Mi has the ability to make him feel flustered. Kyuhyun’s never been this fond of anyone or anything before.

He turns the heating up as high as it can go.

“This region is wild territory and doesn’t belong to any city or community. So there isn’t Climate Control.”

“I always thought cold would be something you could see,” Zhou Mi says, holding his hands out to the air vents to warm them. “I’m not sure if I like it as much as a rainstorm.”

The cargo they’re meant to pick up is already there when they arrive. Zhou Mi’s visibly shocked when he opens the door and jumps out of the truck. The cold air stings Kyuhyun’s skin pleasantly and he rolls up his sleeves, relishing this intensity of feeling that always lies outside the confines of his life in the city. He gestures at Zhou Mi to watch, and then exhales deeply. When his breath turns to fog, Zhou Mi gasps. Kyuhyun can’t help but laugh at the childish glee that comes over his face.

“Do you like it now?”

Zhou Mi’s too busy inhaling and exhaling clouds in the cold to reply.

It’s only a little later, when they’re loading the crates of minerals into the truck, that Zhou Mi begins to shiver. His teeth chatter audibly and Kyuhyun puts his things down and goes over in slight alarm. _Stupid, stupid, stupid,_ he thinks angrily. He should’ve known it would’ve been a little too much, staying out in the cold for so long in their thin jackets when Zhou Mi’s never experienced anything like this before.

“Get into the truck,” he says, efficiently guiding Zhou Mi over even as he pulls open the door. The other man looks utterly lost, too distracted by his shaking to climb into the vehicle.

This won’t do. Guilt wars with worry in Kyuhyun’s gut, and he pulls off his own jacket to wrap it around Zhou Mi’s shoulders before blindly reaching down to grip his freezing hands tightly. Zhou Mi tries to protest but he’s overtaken by a violent shiver. They stay like that for a while, until Kyuhyun manages to coax Zhou Mi into the truck, quickly load the rest of the cargo, and then climb in himself. The heat in the interior of the truck envelops him, and he’s greeted with a grateful smile.

They’re fifteen kilometres closer to the city when Kyuhyun glances over to see Zhou Mi asleep, his head resting against the glass window. All these years of going to the North - he reflects that he’s never felt so cold before today, and conversely he’s also never felt so warm.

-

He wakes up one morning from a restless sleep, the hazy recollection of an intense blur of images and feelings still seared in his mind. It feels real, and yet Kyuhyun has a good memory and knows that nothing in that scene has ever happened to him. It nags at him all the way through breakfast, and he tries to bring the opaque details into focus with little success. This ungraspable memory eludes him all day, and he asks Zhou Mi to take over his driving duties so that he doesn’t drive them off the road in his distraction.

The same thing happens to him once more that night, and then many nights after that. Eventually the recollections? memories? perceptions? start to become a little clearer, though no less understandable. Sometimes Kyuhyun perceives streets in his city, and sometimes the routes he drives, but all of these places are always different from how they actually are in small and improbable ways. In these not-quite-recollections, he’s often traversing alone and aching all the way to his bones. It’s a feeling that he can’t quite shake off during the day and more than once, Zhou Mi looks at Kyuhyun in the morning with a slight frown before rushing to climb into the driver’s seat first.

Once, he wakes up shaking, his heart hammering, with a vivid perception still echoing in his mind. He was sitting along the side of the road, with the mountains in the distance, a warm wind whistling in his ears, and a comforting weight pressed against his side. There was a voice singing an unfamiliar melody, but it was not his. In that scene, Kyuhyun was heavy with sleepiness. When the song faltered, he leaned more against the source of the singing - another person, a man, someone familiar - and closed his eyes. The man he leaned against said something teasingly, and Kyuhyun recognised the voice. It was Zhou Mi’s. In that perception, the realisation only made him smile, and then he was turning a little, he was reaching blindly to curl his fingers in the material of Zhou Mi’s shirtfront, and he was pushing his face into the crook between Zhou Mi’s neck and shoulder and chasing his comforting scent.

He doesn’t know what disturbs him more - that in that not-quite-recollection neither of them were troubled by the strangeness of their physical contact, or that he woke and wanted to sleep to return to that elusive moment again.

When Zhou Mi sees him that morning, he sighs heavily and pushes him towards the passenger seat without a word. Kyuhyun tenses at the sensation of his hand on his shoulder, and Zhou Mi retracts to it with an apology. As they hurtle down the open road to the North, Kyuhyun closes his eyes and thinks about what he remembers from his days as a Book Keeper, searching for knowledge from the Past that can explain this. The Speaker’s route reports fizzle out by the time he lands upon the distant and yellowed memory of a word - _dream_. Perhaps he has been dreaming all this while. He mouths the word, the sensation of its sound new and exhilarating on his tongue.

He relishes the shock of cold when he climbs out of the truck and focuses on the motions of lifting and loading the boxes, working efficiently and silently alongside Zhou Mi. He cannot help but wonder if this Zhou Mi would be the same as dream-Zhou Mi. Surreptitiously, he watches the strain of his arms and his long fingers gripping the crates securely. Those are hands that have already become accustomed to the cold, just like Kyuhyun’s. And yet, Kyuhyun’s hands ache with the memory of being held. He clenches them into a fist.

The cold fails to chase these muddled thoughts from his mind.

All this feels dangerous. He wonders if he would be Released because of this. He needs to ask Changmin what he knows. Confusion suffusing his thoughts, Kyuhyun looks up and his gaze meets with Zhou Mi’s in the rearview mirror. The other man smiles at him and despite everything, Kyuhyun feels a little better.

-

One night, after dinner, Kyuhyun looks out of his window in time to see a familiar figure coming out of a Food Collection van and entering his building. He moves to the door to wait, and is rewarded with the rattle of a cart coming down the corridor outside, fifteen minutes later. Pushing open the door, he gives Changmin a casual nod, lifting his tray full of empty dishes to put it into the collection cart.

“Ah, let me help you - that looks heavy.”

Changmin nods and thanks him impassively, arranging Kyuhyun’s tray and making a mess of the cutlery lining the bottom of the container. They continue going down the corridor, collecting the trays left outside from other households, and the loud rattling of the tableware echoes against the walls.

“Do you know anything about dreams?” Kyuhuyn asks under his breath.

Changmin drops another tray onto the cart with careless abandon, but he’s frowning. “They’re labelled as forces of disturbances. We’re no longer able to… apprehend them.”

“What if I have?”

He watches Changmin tighten his grip on the cart handle. “What? Kyuhyun...”

He lets his friend process the news for a while, dutifully picking up more trays and depositing them into the cart. How can Changmin stand to do this every day? But Kyuhyun knows he had his reasons for asking to be Reassigned from being a Book Keeper. Someone with Changmin’s intelligence asking the same kinds of questions that Kyuhyun himself had asked as a Book Keeper… The results would have been unimaginable and therefore terrifying.

“You need to be careful. Can you stop them?”

“No. I’ve tried.”

Changmin sighs and casts him a worried glance. “Nobody can know about this.”

“Can you see if you can find out anything more?”

A terse nod. If Kyuhyun hadn’t grown up with Changmin, he’d think he is angry now. But, he supposes, not everyone can have Zhou Mi’s expressive demeanour. This serves Changmin well, as he traverses the city on his nondescript Assignment, picking up and passing around information in secret rebel networks. Few would suspect that someone seemingly so irritable would chose to speak with others at all. Even fewer would know the Changmin that Kyuhyun has come to implicitly trust and look up to.

Kyuhyun walks him out of the building, and as the cart rattles deafeningly down the road, he supposes the next question from Changmin is inevitable. “Do you… see things in the dreams? What are they like?”

“Just some of the places I’ve been before.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

-

They’re enveloped in a haze of rain one afternoon when Kyuhyun hears Zhou Mi humming absently. His heart jolts as he shakes the water from his face and whirls around. Zhou Mi’s staring out across the dried-up plains at the mountains shrouded in fog. His hands are buried in the pockets of his jacket and there is an elegance in the curve of his shoulders and back. His hair is matted by the drizzle and he looks lost in thought.

_Beautiful_ , Kyuhyun thinks.

He can hear Changmin’s voice in his head telling him to _be careful_ , but Kyuhyun listens instead to that instinctive feeling that this is a rare moment that will easily fade to nothingness. So he slowly moves to stand beside Zhou Mi, their shoulders stopping shy of touching. He takes a deep breath, feeling his voice take shape in the expansion of his lungs.

And then he sings.

It’s been a while since he’s done this, but the ability to do this feels like it has been etched into his bones. Kyuhyun luxuriates in the calm that settles over him, focusing on the contours of the song on his lips. He may as well be stripped of his clothes and his skin; this is the first time he’s putting his voice out in the open for someone to hear.

When the melody dies and Kyuhyun opens his eyes, his hands are shaking. Zhou Mi lets out a ragged sigh and they stare openly at each other for the longest moment. Kyuhyun is beset by the impulse to pull him into the truck and drive further and further West until they disappear into the mountains.

Instead, their time runs out and they return like they always do.

“Thank you,” Zhou Mi whispers when they’re back in the outskirts of their city, and Kyuhyun tenses up and glances at the Speakers. But Zhou Mi doesn’t say anything more, simply covering Kyuhyun’s free hand with his own.

-

There is a catastrophic-sounding crash outside his apartment one evening, and Kyuhyun throws open his door in alarm to see Changmin dourly picking up the contents of the tray that he’d dropped outside. Kyuhyun kneels down to help, but becomes distracted flicking rice grains at Changmin instead, smirking at his irritated stare.

They’re halfway down the corridor on the third floor, making as much noise as they can - Kyuhyun wonders if Changmin gets complaints from the disgruntled residents of this building - when Changmin finally mutters, “There’s talk that the authorities are testing out some new kind of medication.”

“Medication?”

“A treatment of sorts. Word has it that it helps make feelings more... _Controllable_.”

“Whatever that means.” Kyuhyun’s spent a long-enough time in the Libraries to know this doesn’t bode well. “Sounds like a tranquilizer. Who’re they targeting?”

Changmin pauses to pick up a tray, his nose wrinkling with distaste at the way some leftover soup has spilled out of the bowl inside. “You’d better keep those dreams of yours secret. Even better, make them go away.”

Kyuhyun has expected this warning, but to hear the words still feels like a punch to the stomach. What can he do but nod obediently?

Before he leaves for the next building in his schedule, just as he’s getting into his van, Changmin’s disgruntled Food Collector’s persona falls away for a moment and there he is again, the boy that Kyuhyun has known for a lifetime, looking at him with a soft, worried frown.

In this city they aren’t allowed to give each other much. Kyuhyun gently shuts the door for Changmin before he can reach for it himself. “Drive safely,” he murmurs.

“You too.”

-

Zhou Mi spots the woman first.

She is lying face-down in the withered grass off the road, her standard-issue tunic a stark splotch against the field. He pulls over and slams on the brakes with a soft exclamation, and is out of the vehicle and running over by the time Kyuhyun has got over his surprise enough to follow him with unsteady feet.

She must be from their city. She’s wearing the same clothes as the other women and Kyuhyun has never seen another community in all his years of driving, so it’s geographically unlikely for her to have come from somewhere else. She isn’t moving and as Kyuhyun approaches he sees Zhou Mi turning her over, feeling her neck and wrists, his eyes wide.

“Kyuhyun… Kyuhyun, I think she’s dead.”

Kyuhyun shakes his head, confused. The word means little to him. It’s a distant memory residing in some old books that have long been destroyed. He clumsily pieces together what he’s read before. _To be dead is to cease to live. To live is to exist, and draw breath, and be capable of movement and speech and thought_. He stares down at the woman’s pale stillness - she looks like she’s asleep -  and watches Zhou Mi’s desperate attempts to elicit a response from her. His panic is palpable and he’s trembling. Kyuhyun wonders why it feels like he’s watching something from a distance when Zhou Mi’s crouched just by his feet, ineffectually tapping the woman’s unmoving face.

Kneeling down, he lays a hand between Zhou Mi’s shoulder blades, hoping the touch will divert him from the emotions that seem to be overtaking him. It’s relentlessly cold around them but Zhou Mi’s back is warm and tears are running uncontrollably down his face. Kyuhyun thinks he might understand the difference between being dead and being alive a little better.

It takes a while for Zhou Mi to calm down, and Kyuhyun’s fingers feel frozen by the time he stops stroking soothing circles into his back. He finds that he cannot stand to look at the dead woman anymore. It’s too unnerving and her face has already been branded into his mind as it is.

“This is what people become when they’re Released.” Zhou Mi’s voice, rough from crying, startles Kyuhyun from his ruminations.

“I thought Release meant leaving the city.” _Not being dead_ , he doesn’t add, _not this terrible stillness_. He withdraws a little from Zhou Mi and the woman, trying to rub warmth into his own hands.

Zhou Mi shakes his head and the bitterness in his eyes is new and so unlike him. “Growing up, I’d hear about death in the Elders’ stories about the Past and it would scare me. They said it no longer existed so I believed them. But when I became a Nurturer and I had to do Releases… It slowly became clear to me. I was taking away lives. You haven’t seen a Release before, have you? But I have. I’ve done them. We inject something into the people being Released. They stop moving and breathing, and we dispose of them. And after that realisation… I tried to ask the other Nurturers about it, but they seemed not to realise anything.”

“Was that why you were Reassigned here?”

“One day I had to Release a Newchild that I had nurtured. I just couldn’t do it. They had to remove me from the room before I affected the other Nurturers,” Zhou Mi hugs his knees closer to his chest, his breath misting in the air. “That was how I ended here. As a Driver.”

Zhou Mi’s lips push into a poor imitation of a smile. Kyuhyun’s chest hurts and he feels his stomach lurching a little at the horror of all this new knowledge. He reaches out impulsively to touch the dead woman’s face and nearly recoils at its stiff iciness. She looks to be only a little younger than them. How did she end up here? What is her name?

“We should go.”

He doesn’t even notice Zhou Mi standing until he’s being pulled up by the taller man. His legs feel weak and he doesn’t think he has it in him to continue driving today, to complete his Assignment obediently and return to the city that is full of secrets they cannot know. He stumbles a little in the grass when he tries to walk, and that’s when Zhou Mi pauses and turns around.

Kyuhyun finds himself pulled into the tight circle of Zhou Mi’s arms, their chests crushed together as Zhou Mi tightens his hold. He knows that he should be alarmed by this, but he’s so exhausted and lost from this strange morning that this makes him feel secure instead. And so, Kyuhyun closes his eyes and noses the curve of Zhou Mi’s collarbone, letting his own arms come up to palm the softness of Zhou Mi’s jacket. He’s swaying on his feet but that’s only because they’re pressed so closely together. He couldn’t tremble now even if he wanted to, and perhaps, that’s why they’re doing this.

He wonders if there is a word for this in the old books, but perhaps it is of no consequence for they have all been burnt away, reduced to shards of memory that Kyuhyun has to sift through. Why should he even search for such a word when he can revel in the warmth between their bodies instead? He is astounded by the beating of his heart. Never has it sounded this loud to him before.

“Zhou Mi,” he whispers. In his mouth, the words feel as precious as a song. It is too cold for them to stay here any longer, and the dead woman weighs in his heart even as he tries to avoid looking at her - but for this moment he nurses this errant flare of light contained in his body.

-

Trouble strikes when they return to the city. The Speaker crackles to life once they get back within range, and initially it gives them route reports that are so repetitive that they fade to the background with the rumble of the truck. But as they exit the outskirts, they hear an Announcement.

“A member of our community has Trespassed Outside. Needless to say, this is a serious Offence that warrants immediate punishment when found. Those who may know anything about this incident are to report to the Safety Centre immediately. To harbour secret information is an Offence that warrants Release.”

The news is a devastating confirmation of what Kyuhyun’s imagined in the long drive back. He needs to talk to Changmin but it’ll have to wait until a few days later, after everything has blown over and there are fewer eavesdropping ears about. He sighs and chews on his bottom lip anxiously, navigating the narrower city streets, and observing the worried whispering breaking out among the people going about their lives on the sidewalks.

Zhou Mi seems to receive the news impassively, driving with his usual precision and efficiency. But as Kyuhyun watches, his apparent calm slowly crumples and when Zhou Mi’s breathing becomes slightly erratic, he forces him to stop beside a park.

“That person… Oh, Kyuhyun - ” Zhou Mi’s voice is too loud and emotional. Kyuhyun curses silently as he scrambles to pull him out of the truck, covering his mouth with a firm hand.

Kyuhyun tries to calm Zhou Mi down, and even though the other man seems to catch on to the need to remain silent, he’s on the verge of a similar meltdown from the one he’d had in the morning. Kyuhyun has removed his hand, but now Zhou Mi’s biting at his own knuckles to stifle his distress. It’s difficult to watch. Kyuhyun wants to hold him but knows it is impossible. This park is quiet and there is no one around, but it doesn’t mean they will not be seen. Kyuhyun wishes they were somewhere more crowded and noisier where Zhou Mi would not be heard, but that would mean that his panic would be noticed. It’s just not safe for them to be in this city right now.

When a new Announcement comes over the Speakers in the park and in the truck, Kyuhyun’s blood runs cold.

“The Drivers of Vehicle 291 are to report to the Safety Centre immediately.”

It’s an unavoidable order. Zhou Mi looks stricken and begins to apologise, but Kyuhyun holds up a hand to stop him. Don’t tell them, he mouths, grimly watching as Zhou Mi bites his lip and nods imperceptibly. They share a desperate gaze before moving. Kyuhyun tries to dredge up enough courage to cover his fear but there isn’t enough of it.

“You were just too shocked,” he intones to Zhou Mi in the brief chance he gets when he starts up the truck and its engine roars awake. On the streets, other people walk calmly, without the knowledge of death. He finds that he envies them.

-

_He just looked really shocked all of a sudden._

_I thought maybe being in the open would calm him down._

_Never seen anything like it before._

_The Announcement really surprised us all, I guess._

_I don’t know what you’re talking about._

By the time Kyuhyun is let out of the Safety Centre after repeating his litany of half-truths over and over again, it’s dark out. Zhou Mi and the truck are both nowhere to be found. His eyes are dry, and he feels wrung out and sick with worry. He doesn’t know what’s become of Zhou Mi, and hopes more fervently than he’s ever hoped in his life that Zhou Mi hasn’t been harmed. There’s nothing Kyuhyun can do at this point but he stays out in the Climate Controlled night air for a while before going back to his dwelling. It does nothing to clear his mind.

His daily dinner ration is at the door, untouched, when he arrives at his dwelling in a stupor. There is the impulse to fling it away, but Kyuhyun knows it will bring nothing but trouble. The thought of eating turns his stomach and he steps over the tray to go in, accidentally tripping on it a little. The tray shifts, and he spots a flash of paper under it. Something compels him to look closer and when he does, he swiftly gathers everything up and brings it into his apartment.

_Heard about this afternoon. Your friend should be back tomorrow. Take care of yourself - something’s brewing._ Changmin’s spidery handwriting is cramped from disuse. Kyuhyun sinks into the chair and shakily exhales.

The night creeps by intolerably. He can only wait.

When he reports to work the next day, Zhou Mi’s already at their lockers reading through their schedule for the day. Kyuhyun stares at his familiar figure and has to restrain his joy and relief.

“Zhou Mi,” he says tremulously, watching him turn around.

The blandness of Zhou Mi’s smile is disquieting.

“Kyuhyun,” he says, “We’re driving the Southern route today.”

“Well, let’s go then.” Kyuhyun swallows his confusion and swiftly takes his things.

His Zhou Mi would sit less stiffly and more carelessly in the passenger seat, he thinks as they drive away.

They get beyond the reach of the Speaker’s power before Zhou Mi’s posture relaxes a little. Kyuhyun watches from the corner of his eye as he worries at his bottom lip with his front teeth, staring doggedly out at the horizon. Kyuhyun has a million questions but he doesn’t know if he can ask them.

“I didn’t tell them,” Zhou Mi says, his voice flat. “I just said that I just thought about my old Assignment when Release was mentioned. That much they could have guessed, anyway.”

“What did they do to you?”

“Made me eat something. It looked like medication of some sort. I don’t know… It seemed that way at least.”

Kyuhyun forces himself not to slam on the brakes at the mental image. He meets Zhou Mi’s eyes in the rearview mirror. At least one of them has to keep it together and he needs to be that person. “How do you feel?”

Zhou Mi huffs a soundless, defeated laugh. He shakes his head and reaches out to mindlessly adjust the old maps on the dashboard. “I don’t know. I just… I’m not in any pain. But something feels like it’s missing. It’s like my feelings are coming from somewhere far away.”

Kyuhyun mutely takes this information in, his mind racing.

“When I left the Safety Centre it was very late. I _knew_ I was still frightened and upset and worried but I couldn’t _feel_ it. And I wanted so badly to be able to. All night I tried to make myself cry or _something_. I thought about the dead woman. I thought about you. But nothing happened…”

What can he say?

Kyuhyun slows down. There’s something boiling in him and he’s angry and pained like he’s never been before. The thought of nameless, faceless people corralling Zhou Mi in a room, terrifying him and then cutting the emotions out of him… Kyuhyun has to stop by the road for a moment before he drives the both of them off of it. Zhou Mi touches his shoulder and Kyuhyun finds himself clinging to his hand.

“This won’t last forever. I think they’ll make me go back again for more.” Zhou Mi’s still chewing on his bottom lip and it looks raw and inflamed. His voice is still devoid of inflection. “I can’t do it. When we went in I was afraid I’d be Released. But now… It seems a kinder option.”

Kyuhyun doesn’t realise he’s crying until Zhou Mi reaches out to wipe at his tears. It must be a mockery to Zhou Mi, Kyuhyun thinks, to watch him break down when he can’t. He turns his face away.

“I’ll come up with something,” he promises desperately. “But for now, just stay with me. Please.”

-

Kyuhyun spends two weeks helping to push Changmin’s collection cart. By the end of it, they conclude that the drugs have a temporary effect but are in the process of becoming an unavoidable part of the entire city’s routine. In this time, Zhou Mi is called back to the Safety Centre twice and emerges each time a paler and paler version of himself. Kyuhyun becomes afraid to sleep at night. His dreams have become suffused with Zhou Mi’s emotionless eyes, and the occasional times that he dreams of Zhou Mi's affection instead, Kyuyun wakes up unsure of which experience he hates more.

“Do you know what the woman who escaped was looking for?” Kyuhyun asks one day.

Changmin drops the bowl he’s holding. It doesn’t seem deliberate.

“Nowhere that I know of,” he says after a long pause. “I think she just wanted out.”

Kyuhyun nods. He weighs the next words on his tongue carefully, but Changmin - prodigious, sharp Changmin who knows him all too well - beats him to it.

“You’re thinking about it.”

“Yes.” He wishes they could have a real conversation that isn’t marred by the clamour of silverware, but that is too luxurious to hope for. “Come with us.”

“My work here isn’t done,” Changmin’s lips twist into a wry smile. Kyuhyun will look back on this moment and realise that one of his biggest regrets is not being able to hold his friend in his arms even just once. But in this moment, he only hides his sigh and helps Changmin pick up another tray.

-

When they get around to it, it’s almost disappointingly easy.

The evening before their escape, Kyuhyun leaves a note in his tray for Changmin to pick up, with _I’ll remember you_ scrawled on it. When he hears the purposeful crash of cutlery falling onto the ground, he goes out for a moment, picks them up and presses them into Changmin’s hands. He holds on a little longer than necessary. This part is the most difficult.

After that it’s just a matter of bundling all the clothes he can take with him without arousing suspicion into the truck and driving away. They’d picked a day where the schedule would take them Westward. Their plastic exit passes go through the machine without a hitch, and they drive through the border. Still, Kyuhyun holds his breath, drives faster, and doesn’t hold Zhou Mi’s hand until the crackling of the Speaker fades out of range.

“Route status request,” he says loudly once, twice, thrice. Nothing. Nothing at all for another kilometre - he knows because they’re both calling into the Speaker repeatedly to be sure.

He cannot help but laugh a little, glancing over at Zhou Mi. The other man’s eyes are still too dead, but they have time and the road stretches endlessly ahead. He knows that Zhou Mi will be able to heal. “I don’t know where we can go,” he confesses, but for whatever it is worth, they are _free_.

Zhou Mi winds down his window and savours the wildness of the wind.

This isn’t a dream. They will eventually run out of fuel and food, and they might never find somewhere hospitable to live in. Their odds of survival are terribly low. It is something they have come to accept. This certainly isn’t a dream and yet Kyuhyun knows that he doesn’t want it to be. Zhou Mi’s palm is nestled in his and Kyuhyun longs to learn the geography of his smile once more, when it returns.

They drive on. He sings until he runs out of melodies.

“Look at the mountains, Kyuhyun,” Zhou Mi says suddenly. “Look - they’re absolutely beautiful.”


End file.
